What kind of GTX 460 should i get?

[Fëanor]

These are the cards i got my sights on: (Newegg links but prices are local)

€183 MSI Cyclone N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC (725MHz): Cheapest factory overclocked 768Mb card available.
€200 Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI (715MHz) Besides being the cheapest 1GB card its also factory overclocked!
€244 EVGA GTX 460 SuprClocked (763MHz): Massive factory overclock, 10year warranty.

I need this videocard to last me about 1 year in my primary PC and 2 more years in my secondary pc. I play games on 1920x1200 and while most of them are pretty dated and not graphically demanding (Paradox Games, Civilization etc.) from time to time i'd like to play games like Borderlands or Fallout 3 New Vegas and do so without compromising their looks to get smooth FPS so i will be overclocking and probably be adding a second card for SLI in 6 months to 1 year.

The MSI card is hitting a great price/performance sweetspot, it is supposedly extremely overclockable (stable over 800MHz) however i'm worried that the 768MB/192 bit memory might be quite the bottleneck for 1920x1200 res while OC'd and in SLI. (In Anardtech's Crysys warhead benchmark "our ragtag SLI set of 1GB GTX 460s beats our pair of factory overclocked EVGA 768MB GTX 460s by 33%", but most games shouldn't have that problem according to the other benchmarks of that article, however that article pitts reference (675Mhz) 1GB cards in SLI versus SuprClocked (768Mhz) cards while in my scenario its 715Mhz 1GB cards vs 725Mhz 768Mb cards so the 1GB Gigabyte cards should end performing considerably better)

The Gigabyte, 1GB/256 bit memory should give it decent performance @1920x1200 especially once in SLI, however 2 years warranty means that it will be out of warranty for about 1/3 of its expected lifetime with me.

The EVGA card is obviously the best of these cards performance wise, the extended warranty is also nice considering this card should last for at least 3 years. But even so its kind of hard to justify a €44 premium over the GV-N460OC-1GI. However this EVGA was listed 2 weeks after other GTX460 cards and is not yet available, its probable that once they start becoming available and more shops sell them that the price will drop by some €15 (to the levels of the 800MHz clocked Palit Sonic Platinum)

So which one should i get? The MSI, Gigabyte, EVGA or maybe something else?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The MSI looks to be in the sweet spot. honestly, the memory difference isnt worth it in my opinion, not for 1920x resolutions. My GTX 260 does just fine in that regard.

If you can get an EVGA card closer to the MSI's price point, I would go for that. Their warranty is awesome, and worth a slight premium in itself.

 

[Fëanor]

But the GTX260 has 448 bit memory bus width, wont a couple of OC'd MSI cards in SLI will be seriously bottlenecked by their 192 bit memory bus?

As for non GTX460 options, are these even worth considering?
€160 Sapphire HD5830
€208 EVGA GTX 465
€209 2x Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 1GB
€250 Sapphire HD5850
€255 2x Sapphire Vapor-X HD5770 1GB
€279 Zotac GeForce GTX 470

 

[fromeast2west]

The reviews I've seen show that the extra memory on the 1GB cards is worth it. I'd go for the Gigabyte card. The super overclocked version doesn't seem worth the extra cost.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The 192bit bus might make a difference. I didnt think of that.

Its not much of a difference, but looking at the numbers I would go for the 1GB version. 256 bit bus means 120GB/s speed vs 85GB/s for the 192.

 

[Fëanor]

Well...

I got tired of waiting for the EVGA cards to become available and fluctuate in price so i just ordered 2x MSI Cyclone N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC, I ended up picking those for mainly two reasons:

1: Overclocability: 725Mhz factory overclock and thus more likely to be good/stable overclokerer than non factory overclocked cards, also the Cyclone cards are widely reported as being amongst the best overclockers, MSI Afterburn tool is pretty nice (i think it does not void your warranty, i will definitely double check that before doing any further OC'ing)
2: Pretty cheap, just €189,- a piece. Cheapest 1gb card i might add and just €15 more expensive than the very cheapest GTX460 768MB

The only downside is just 2 years warranty (and 6-10 working days wait till i get them, but god only knows how long it will take for the EVGA cards to get here, and at €240 the extended warranty is hardly worth it)